[m-rev.] for review: re-arrange the compiler changes entries in the NEWS file.

[Julien Fischer]

On Sun, 5 Jan 2020, Zoltan Somogyi wrote:

> On Sun, 5 Jan 2020 16:25:05 +1100 (AEDT), Julien Fischer <jfischer at opturion.com> wrote:

...

>> +* `--warn-dead-preds`
>> +
>> +  While the existing option `--warn-dead-procs` asks the compiler to generate
>> +  warnings for every unused procedure of the module being compiled, this new
>> +  option asks the compiler to generate a warning for an unused procedure only
>> +  if none of the procedures of a predicate or function is used.
>
> This is about old text (that I probably wrote), but I would reword the end of that as
> "for a predicate or function only if none of its procedures is used".

Done.

>
>> +* `--inline-linear-tail-rec-sccs`
>> +
>> +  This option tells the compiler, when it finds a set of procedures that each
>> +  contain one tail call to one *other* member of the set, to inline the tail
>> +  calls to turn those mutually recursive procedures into procedures that each
>>     contain only *self* tail recursion.
>
> I am not sure we should advertise this one, and maybe we should even
> delete it. It was a stopgap measure that I added to the compiler when
> the MLDS code generator could optimize tail calls only if they were
> self-tail-calls. Now that it can also optimize mutual tail calls, the need
> for this option is not there anymore.

Deleted from the NEWS file; I'll leave it to you as to whether it should
be deleted from the compiler.

>> +### Changes to the developer compilation model options
>> +
>> +* `--num-reserved-objects`
>> +
>> +  We have deleted this option.
>
> I don't think we advertise changes to developer options, given that we hide
> even the bare fact of their existence (by not commenting out their documentation
> in the manual sources).

Deleted.  (I think this was uncommented in the usage message, so maybe
it is worth mentioning?  OTOH, I can't imagine it was ever very useful
to non-developers.)

> On a topic that is not in the diff: as per our discussion on m-dev in late august
> (with a topic on segfaults) we should disable the "where direct_arg is" syntax
> in type definitions. The documentation of that syntax in reference_manual.texi
> is commented out, but if there is any user-facing documentation of that feature
> anywhere else, its demise should be mentioned in NEWS now.

I'll take a look.

Thanks for that!

Julien.